626 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



October, 1918 



filled and beautifully capped over with 

 sweet-clover honey. In his honey-room he 

 had a pile of hives not quite as tall as the 

 one on the cover of our issue for Septem- 

 ber; but each hive contained nine or ten 

 combs beautifully caioped over, like the one 

 of which I have been speaking. Well, they 

 cut out a chunk of this same comb of honey 

 for dinner. Now, I suppose the beautiful 

 bread we had, was made from wheat of 

 their own raising. It was not only the very 

 nicest bread I ever tasted, but that sweet- 

 clover honey was certainly the most deli- 

 cious sample of honey that it was ever my 

 privilege to put in my mouth. Mrs. Root 

 was not there at the time, or else perhaps 

 I would not dare say so, because she would 

 say I was saying the same thing almost 

 every day. To cap all, friend Williams 

 showed me the nicest workmanship in hives 

 and frames I ever saw. They were made 

 by r. C. Bennett, who has a hive-shop in 

 Jamestown. His arrangement for winter- 

 ing is substantially a beautiful chaff-pack- 

 ed hive. With his 30 acres of sweet clover, 

 of course there is a big opening for a good- 

 sized apiai-y. In fact, the frame he ex- 

 hibited indicates that the bees were short 

 of room and had bulged the comb and filled 

 evei-y crevice in the hive with that beautiful 

 well-ripened sweet-clover honey. 



Just here I wish to remark that letting 

 honey stay in the hive until the season is 

 over produces a much better quality of ex- 

 tracted honey than where it is taken out 

 during the working season, as we used to 

 do.* 



In our last issue I spoke of the level 

 wheat fields around about Wyndmere. The 

 country around Jamestown and Cleveland 

 is quite rolling, and it seemed to me that 

 the locality is not so good for grain-grow- 

 ing as the eastern part of North Dakota. 

 In fact, Creorge told me that their particu- 

 lar locality was so celebrated for its great 

 grain fields that it had been called the 

 " bread-basket of the world." 



On my return trip I visited the town of 

 Mitchell, S. D. I have before mentioned 

 on these pages that I have for many years 

 owned a tract of half a square mile a mile 

 out of Mitchell. This tract is a mile long, 

 east and west, and a half a mile wide. On the 

 north side of the strip a roadway was laid 

 out years ago, but it is now unused, prob- 

 ably because there is a better road near by 

 without hills and gullies. Well, a friend of 

 mine who has charge of the place under- 



*Ernest, who overboard the dictation of tlie 

 above, tells me to add that leaving the honey on the 

 hivei until the season is over is getting to be a com- 

 mon practice everywhere. See bis remarks else- 

 where. 



took to run thru this old roadway with his 

 automobile, but he was obliged to give it 

 up and turn back when about half way 

 thru. Now comes something of importance 

 I want to talk about. This old unused 

 road is, a great part of it, covered with a 

 tremendous growth of wild sunflowers. I 

 think I am safe in saying that many of 

 them were as high as the automobile. They 

 were not yet in bloom at the time of my 

 visit; but they showed such rank luxuriance 

 that I began wondering whether some use 

 could not be made of them for feeding 

 farm stock. By the way, there is a bee- 

 keeper, Mr. J. W. Anderson, who has a 

 farm adjoining, and a bit of his best 

 ground had been allowed to grow up also 

 to these great rank weeds — at least I be- 

 lieve they call them so there. The stalks 

 Avere so heavy, and they grew so thickly 

 together, that it would laother anybody to 

 push his way thru. I could not find when 

 tliere that an attempt had been made to 

 utilize these wild sunflowers; but soon 

 after I anived home I found in the Ohio 

 Farmer for July 20 the following: 



SUNFLOWERS FOR SILAGE. 



For the past three years I have been making an 

 interesting exijeriment. Since it has turnetd out 

 well it might not be out of place to give the benefit 

 of the result to others. The experiment consisted 

 of the use of sunflowers for silage. 



Three years ago we put both corn and sunflowers 

 into the silo; in the following winter we fed the 

 ■silage to our dairy herd. The result was interesting 

 and important. The cows ate the silage with more 

 relish than they did pure corn silage. Tliere was an 

 increase in their milk flow and a marked change in 

 the color of the milk. It became quite yellow, re- 

 sembling the color of the milk of cow.s upon June 

 pasture. It also remained the same color during the 

 entire time when this silage was fed. 



PLANTING THE CROP. 



Tlie crop was planted just as ordinary silage corn. 

 The seed was composed of equal parts of sunflower 

 and silage corn seed. The seed was planted with a 

 corn planter and the corn was cultivated as a field 

 of corn would be. About the first of September the 

 sunflowers began to open and about a week later the 

 entire field looked like a mammoth flower garden. 

 The crop was allowed to stand until the tenth of 

 October when nearly all the sunflowers were ripe. 



HARVESTING THE CROP. 



The corn and sunflowers were cut with a corn 

 harvester, shredded and put into the silo. All parts 

 of the sunflower plant were put in — stalk, leaves 

 and head. Many of the stalks were an inch and 

 one-half in diameter at the base, and from seven to 

 nine feet tall. 



FEEDING THE SILAGE. 



The silage was fed just as corn silage, altho 

 Iciss was required of the sunflower and corn silage 

 than that of the pure corn. Sunflower seed is very 

 rich in oil and is a very " filling " feed. Maniy peo- 

 pel watched the cows eat the silage and werei as- 

 tonished to see them eat all of the stalk, for the 

 butt of the stalks looks rather coarse and hard. 

 However, these pieces of stalks were well soaked 

 with the juice of the silage and the cows consumed 

 every particle of the silage with relish. We have 

 tried the experiment three different years and each 

 time we have obtained similar results. 



